People Who Regularly Drive Long Distances Reveal The Weirdest Things They've Seen On The Road

Despite all that we have learned about the world around us, there are still some things that remain hard, if not impossible, to explain.

And a large number of those oddities have appeared to us when we're alone, like when we're out in the woods or out on the open road for long stretches of time.

Curious about what others might have witnessed, Redditor iamonaphone1 asked:

"Truckers and people who drive long distances regularly, what was the weirdest situation you drove by [that] you never got an explanation for?"

Mystery Cars

"Middle of nowhere, Georgia, on the interstate at night. I’m in the right lane. Out of nowhere, a black car that looked like it had just wrecked into a cable barrier was crooked in the left lane. The car had no lights on, and there was no way to see it until it would have been too late. No one was around."

"In retrospect, that is a fairly common sighting when you’re tired enough, along with the black dog."

- icaaryal

"A while back, I was driving back from a 30-something straight-hour job. I was so exhausted that I started hallucinating. Driving on the highway at 70+ miles per hour, I saw a broken-down car in the middle of the highway."

"I came to a complete stop before I realized there was nothing there. I pulled off at the next exit and rested for a bit."

- Imdasmartestmanalive

The Black Dog

""The black dog is something I could accept. It was the massive, large as a house, taller than street lights, chickens that I saw on the side of the highway. Turned off at the next exit and rented a motel for the night after those hallucinations."

- Commercial_Board6680

"Black dog?"

- BillFriendly1092

"It's an old superstition/story that truckers tell. Supposedly, tired truckers see a big mean black dog and that's a sign they are too tired and about to wreck. There was a bad 80s movie about it, too."

- FocusMaster

Random Activities

"One time, I saw a woman doing tai chi on the hood of a car in the parking lot of a Louisiana gas station."

"Another time, I was driving north on Highway 395 in California, around 3:00 AM. Miles from the nearest town, in the middle of nowhere in the desert. It was a new moon, and dark as the inside of a cow."

"I came over a rise, and there was a person walking straight down the middle of the highway in my direction. By the time I realized what I was seeing, I passed right by them at 85 miles per hour. I missed them by inches."

- The_Observatory_

Frosted Windshields

"I once saw a lady in a minivan holding a legit candlestick that was lit close to her windshield, trying to defrost it. Had to do a double-take. Gotta do what you gotta do sometimes, I guess."

- cloudsandcandy

"I'm not sure if a candle would do this, but definitely DO NOT pour boiling water on your ice-covered windshield to melt the ice. You will shatter the glass."

"Source: My college housemate who came from much farther south."

- Wurm42

"Reminds me how my dad was running late and our other car had its engine frozen over, so he had to drive me to my HS, but because he was in a rush, he just said f**k it and didn't defrost the windows fully, letting the windshield wipers take care of it."

"I don't know how the man did it, but we drove around 80 percent blind for 10 minutes before it subsided, and we weren't even close to hitting anyone."

- iamonaphone1

Signs Of A Crash

"I was around nine or ten, riding with my parents. I saw a huge fireball in the sky coming down and asked if they saw it as well."

"They did not see it, and they did not believe me until the news said a plane went down not far from where we were at on the road. It's been over two decades since that happened."

- dragoth15

Just Desserts

"One time, somewhere in Kentucky, I drove past a truck that was hauling a small trailer with two coffins on it. One had a John Deere logo, and the other had (I think) a Harley Davidson logo."

"The funny thing was that they didn’t look new. They had mud caked on them, like they had just been dug up..."

- SlippySlapySamsonite

An Unsolved Crime

"Alright: I have one I’ve been waiting to tell for some time."

"My family was in San Jose, and it was the late 70s, I believe it was Alum Rock Street, but it’s been a long time."

"I was sitting in the back behind the passenger seat of my parents’ Cadillac when we passed by a famous hot dog stand that was known for its strange building shape—if I remember correctly, it was a spherical building, like a globe."

"Anyhow, as we passed, I saw a man in the parking lot, parallel to the street, open his door in the driver's seat. He had what from that distance looked like a black hole at his temple."

"I thought I was imagining it, so I pressed my eyes to see clearly. That’s when the man fell straight over to the left out of the driver’s seat and towards the pavement."

"When I saw him fall lifeless-like, I told my parents. I kept repeating, 'I saw a man with a hole in his head, and he fell out of his car!'"

"They dismissed it and kept driving. To this day, I’m not sure if they didn’t believe me or just didn’t care to get involved."

- Roayl_Map8367

An Eagle In A Snowstorm

"I did long-distance courier and transport for rescues. I was driving through South Dakota. I'm not sure where, but there was a train track and bluffs. It was snowing and bad weather, and like 2:00 AM."

"Something large, like bigger than an eagle, flew across the road in front of me. It blacked out that snow tunnel effect."

"I pulled into the next rest stop for a quick nap and break and woke up to some sort of low-life telling me I can't sleep at the rest stop."

- Cyanidesuicideml

Visions In The Fog

"I do hold a CDL, but not like a long hauler. Working out of town, my commute was 70 miles. Early in the morning, before light and foggy as h**l, with freezing fog, like a total white out."

"Driving slow and being cautious, there was suddenly a dark void in the fog right on the white line in the silhouette shape of an individual. Scared the h**l out of me."

- Tasty-Minute-450

Blocking The Road

"I’ve seen some crazy stuff, but one of the weirdest was on my way home from a bar, about one mile from my house."

"Residential two-way street, 35mph limit, parked cars on both sides. It’s 2:00 AM, and I’m driving north on my way home, and ahead, there’s a yellow mustang upside down in the middle of the street."

"I get out since the car is mostly blocking the road. No people are standing around, and no one from any of the houses poked their heads out to see. None of the parked cars on either side are damaged. No scrape marks on the road. Just an upside-down car."

"The only thing I can think is maybe it fell off a rollback? There were no straps or chains stuck to the car (and no panicked tow truck driver either). I looked online the next day and saw nothing. My friends from the neighborhood knew nothing about it, either."

- Nippon-Gakki

A Speedy Vision

"Not necessarily drove by, but kind of. I was headed from Maine to North Carolina, had just entered North Carolina by 85, and decided to stop, probably for a smoke. I guess that would be very rural Granville County."

"Anyway, I got off on the wrong exit, I would've been shooting for something with signs of life, because I get creeped out in the middle of nowhere. Ended up in a tangle of faceless country roads, came around by GPS to a short stint of road that would lead me back to the turnpike. Dirt road, heavy tree cover."

"Then a massive black SUV with blackout-tinted windows and an antenna probably three inches in length came absolutely barreling down the road toward me. It sounds like I'm exaggerating, but I'm not, and the antenna was whipping through the tree cover. Immediately got a bad feeling and sped up as much as I safely could."

"Sure enough, the SUV swiveled around and sped after me. Stop sign at the end of the road, no f**king way, I basically launched myself toward the onramp. That anxiety stayed with me for a good 10 minutes."

"I kept trying to rationalize that there had to be some reason for the SUV to be tricked out the way it was, and even tried googling it when I did get to wherever I ended up stopping, couldn't find a reason for it."

"Asked my uncle who does urban planning across North Carolina, and he also had no idea. I know it sounds really stupid and trivial but the feeling I got was so viscerally dark so immediately. Still baffles me."

- Stormdrain11

Total Deja Vu

"I haul cars in North Carolina. I was on the phone with my wife, and I passed a disabled car on the side of the road with the hood up, and the family was standing off in the grass."

"I said to my wife, 'Oh, man, I feel bad for that family. They're going to be there for a while.'"

"An hour later, I was on the same road, and I swear I saw the same Van with the same family broken down on the side of the road just 60 miles further up the road. Exact same color, make and model, and family. They never passed me, and there's no 'short cuts' to where they could have gotten in front of me. Craziest deja vu I've ever had."

- Nelly0112

Oncoming Traffic

"Not a trucker, but I regularly had to drive about eight hours one-way for National Guard drill for a couple of years. Got caught in a snowstorm one month, driving in whiteout conditions. I grew up in the snow, so I felt comfortable enough."

"There was hardly any traffic at all, certainly no cars visible ahead of or behind me traveling in my direction. Up ahead, I saw headlights approaching. It registered, and I remember thinking, 'Getting closer… Closer… man, there’s no aspect change… that car’s on my side of the freeway, headed the wrong way in the left lane!'"

"I flashed my lights, honked, and in my mirror I saw them eventually stop and do a three-point turn to turn around, but I don’t know how they managed to go up the off-ramp to go the wrong direction without noticing."

- PReasy319

An Optical Illusion

"I was on a long road trip. I'm in the middle of nowhere, it's the middle of the night, pitch black out."

"Suddenly, there was someone immediately in front of my car caught in the headlights. No warning. Just suddenly, a person and I couldn't stop in time. Me and my other two passengers all screamed and braced for impact."

"It was an empty, extra-large black garbage bag that was floating just in the air right at eye level on the road. The bag flowed harmlessly over us, and we all laughed at how scary that was. Legit looked like a man standing on the road, though. Needed new undies after that."

- Zombie_Slur

Drone Sightings

"Highway 140, which connects Lakeview, Oregon, to Winemucca, Nevada, was notorious for having UFOs following vehicles for miles along that road."

"In the 80s and early 90s, it would literally happen nightly. But I’d heard it happened as late as 2005. Multiple generations of my family. including myself, have stories of being followed by it."

"My theory is that it was an early drone, modern ones move a lot like how it did. There are several small military installations in the area, including an WWII airfield, and Cold War era facilities like a Nike Missile base and over the horizon early threat detection radar systems."

- hamellr

Many of these could easily be attributed to sleep deprivation and our brains trying to fill in the gaps created by the false reality we're creating in the face of our lack of sleep.

But some of these, like weird behaviors in parking lots, families reappearing over and over again, and furiously driving cars, maybe there are just some things that aren't meant to be explained.